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Never be witty: Schönberg on conducting
Schreker has a lot to do. During his absence, I am supposed to lead two rehearsals of the mixed choir, and more often the male choirs. I am still very much in doubt whether I can do this! A word from you, dear Herr Schönberg, would be extremely precious to me. In a letter of…
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Going paperless as a conductor: iPad + forScore
One of the advantages of being half classical musician, half tech nerd is that I’ve actively enjoyed being forced to grapple with new technologies as a result of the pandemic. In order to keep doing some version of what we do, musicians have adapted to make use of video-conferencing, audio recording, and pretty much anything…
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Learning curves: on being bad at things
It’s been interesting to see the ways in which musicians and other artists have been coping with the present situation – one which is, as we are constantly reminded, unprecedented. I know several who launched energetically into diversification almost as soon as the first lockdown was pronounced, pivoting as much of their activity as they…
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An A.I. attempts to rewrite Thomas Tallis
Jukebox is a type of neural net – an network of artificial nodes which is ‘trained’ on a series of data, and can then be taught to use this data to generate new strings. These artificial intelligence networks have been used to create unique images, poetry, scripts, and music. Essentially, they work from one data-point…
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Book Notes: The Beat Stops Here
It is a truism that conducting can’t be learned from a book. I don’t actually think there are any books out there that purport to be able to teach conducting in complete isolation from actual experience in front of a group of musicians. But I’ve often found books on conducting helpful in clarifying ideas, or…
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I’m dreaming of a white…carol-book
Going from being the centre of attention on the podium, everyone’s breath waiting on your slightest movement, to once more being just another small box in the corner of someone’s screen, is bruising for the usually well-nourished conducting ego. After a precious couple of months back in action this Autumn, November’s supplementary lockdown heralded a…
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Will ‘design thinking’ save classical music?
I recently happened on an online webinar series hosted by the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT), entitled ‘Introduction to Design Thinking for Musicians‘. Now, this is sort of thing is perfect clickbait for me. ‘Design Thinking’ sounds like a cool piece of Silicon Valley tech-speak – and we can use it as musicians? Sign me…
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Thematic concert programmes: worth the hassle?
Conductors…do not always know how to shape a meaningful whole out of smaller pieces…We often program according to some vague theme or chronological order, perhaps without real thought to or justification for our choices. I feel, as they say, seen. The themed programme is a staple of choral concerts the world over, and yet it…
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Stop making the economic case for the arts
Arts funding is in the news again. The government’s announcement of a Culture Recovery Fund has prompted a round of online discussion of the place of the taxpayer in subsidising culture. It’s not hard to imagine that a feeding frenzy will soon be upon us, with arts organisations and venues gearing up to compete for…
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Creative portfolios: diversifying against risk
I recently made my first, tentative foray into the stock market. I know very little about stocks and shares, but what I have managed to glean so far is this: diversification helps inoculate against risk. Diversifying your holdings, by spreading them out across multiple kinds of investment or country or genre or ‘asset class’, means…
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James Morley Potter 